The cat knocks over the cracker box, and it hits the fruit bowl which tips, and suddenly grapes are rolling everywhere, bouncing off the granite and onto the floor like tiny green escape artists.
I try to catch a grape. Miss. Step on another grape. My foot shoots out from under me.
Michelle grabs my arm to steady me, and somehow we both end up stumbling into Hazel, who catches herself on the island but sends the napkin holder flying.
Napkins flutter down around us like the world’s most domestic confetti.
“Nobody move!” Amber commands, still chasing Butterscotch, who has retreated to the top of the refrigerator with his stolen cheese, looking enormously pleased with himself.
We freeze.
“I am so sorry,” Amber says, slightly out of breath. “He’s usually better behaved. Brett spoils him with deli meat, and now he thinks all food is his food.”
“The book is ruined,” Grandma Hensley mourns.
“I’ll buy you a new copy.”
“I had notes in the margins!”
“I’ll buy you two copies.”
We spend the next ten minutes cleaning up grape casualties and rescuing what’s left of the cheese. Butterscotch watches from the top of the refrigerator, still guarding his gouda like a tiny orange dragon.
Once we’re resettled—cheese board reassembled, wine glasses refilled, Grandma Hensley clutching a replacement book borrowed from Amber’s shelf—Michelle steers us back on course.
“So. Jessica. You were saying something about secrets being complicated.”
“I wasn’t saying anything. I was making a general observation about the book.”
“The book that mirrors your exact situation.”
“It doesn’t mirror my—” I stop. Sigh. “Okay. Fine. Maybe there are some parallels.”
“Some parallels,” Jo repeats. “You’re exchanging anonymous letters with a local author. You’re developing feelings for your landlord. That’s not ‘some parallels.’ That’s a one-to-one adaptation.”
“Are you saying you think Scott is her secret penpal?” Grandma Hensley asks, leaning forward.
“I was actually just thinking that,” I admit.
“Tell us everything,” Amber says. “From the beginning.”
So I do.
I tell them about Coastal Quill’s letters—the vulnerability, the honesty, the way he writes about struggling with authenticity.I tell them about Scott showing up at the planning meetings, making chaos columns and looking at me like I’m a puzzle he can’t solve.
“What else?” Michelle prompts.
“Coastal Quill wrote about watching fireworks with someone. Scott was at the Fourth of July. With me.” I take a breath.
“The question is,” Grandma Hensley says, “what are you going to do about it?”
“I don’t know. Ask him, I guess?”
“Directly?” Jo looks impressed. “Bold.”
“What’s the alternative? Keep wondering forever?”
“You could set a trap,” Mads suggests. “Like in the book. Drop a reference to something only Coastal Quill would know and see if he reacts.”
